August Featured Artist - Graell Corsini
This month, we’re doing things a little differently. Graell is one of my most amazing teachers, who witnessed my own priestess initiation, self-marriage, and countless tears and belly laughs. Here is an interview with her that teaches how we can all be priestessing on a daily basis, regardless of gender or life paths. She is a badass. And walks her talk. I hope you enjoy this magic creatrix and all of her wise words.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a priestess? The word “priestess” is packed with powerful visions of antiquity and power, of women dancing around stone circles in Scotland or wearing crowns of bay leaves in Greece. Good news, that vision isn’t too far away. There are still priestesses to this day who infuse this sacred knowledge into modern, daily life.
Graell Corsini is a priestess of the goddess. She founded and is the director of The Goddess Temple in Ashland, Oregon. She teaches other women about “practical priestessing,” and is also an intuitive guide, sacred movement instructor, midwife of the veil, birth, sacred union, death, and rebirth, goddess temple consultant, and sacred sights tour guide.
Here are a few words from on her on how to get in touch with your inner priestess, even with a hectic life.
WHAT DOES BEING A MODERN PRIESTESS MEAN TO YOU? HOW DOES IT INSPIRE YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE?
Being a modern priestess is walking the path of sacred living, meaning that everything that I do from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep each day is a personal scrying, or seeing through the lens of the mythic. Some practical ways I practice this is upon waking, being completely aware of the elements and how they are supporting my life, thanking the goddess, feeling my body in its solid form, feeling the heat, the sunshine, and being in complete and total gratitude of the gift of life.
HOW CAN SOMEONE WHO IS WORKING A 9-5 OR RAISING A FAMILY, OR CAUGHT UP IN LIFE’S RESPONSIBILITIES EMBODY YOUR PRACTICES?
It’s easy and powerful — fuse this practice in daily life. Every moment is a learning moment, so experience it as a learning moment. When you do this, you can see who is the teacher and who is the student, and it is an opportunity to grow. Everything you do is sacred when looked at through the eyes of the mythic — walking becomes a meditation and movement ritual, When you brush your teeth, do a positive affirmation. When you make your breakfast, try kitchen witchery, infusing magic and healing into your food.
When you look through the lens of the mythic, getting into a car is even sacred. You see that the car has all parts made from earth, even if it is plastic, some part of it is made from earth. There is a consistent awareness and gratitude for the creation of it. Whether it is goddess made, or made man, there is creation and spark of life in it. Having that awareness gives a lesson of gratitude and appreciation that is devotion. It is what infuses the sacred into the mundane.
CAN YOU GIVE SOME PRACTICAL DAILY PRACTICAL RITUALS?
CREATE A HOME ALTAR
If you are single, you have your own altar. If you are in a partnership, the altar is shared. And if you have a family, try supporting children to have an individual altar as well as having a co-created family altar. This makes the home a living, breathing space, and when something good happens they can give thanks at the altar. If anyone gets a call and someone gets sick, you can pray for them there. If someone goes on a hike and finds a special rock or stick, they can add it. The Altar must be refreshed, because it holds as a container for the magic of the family. This is a concrete visual for the magic in that process.
After you create an altar, make it a daily practice to visit it. Acknowledge the elements, and include them on your altar. Start with water from anywhere or a sacred special place, that water is life, without which we would not be. Then add a candle for fire, something to represent earth and air (a feather, breath, singing) with that, having journal or basic positive affirmation that someone has given you or that you came up with to reprogram our thoughts.
It’s easy to get caught up in a fear loop, so having an affirmation like “All that I need is always taken care of, I am safe” can help reset our thought patterns.
ACKNOWLEDGING THE SEASONAL HOLY DAYS
Become aware of the solstices, and high holy days. Make sure that you are clear of the qualities that they bring, and do some kind of a ceremony and knowledge the sacred times. They are directly affecting you — just as the moon phases and seasonal changes impact you, these days are too.
EMBRACE THE ELEMENTS
We could pray to deities and icons all day long, but at the end of the day without the elements and spirit, we would not be. This is a way to be in gratitude and acknowledgement to what gives us life. Having awareness of our environment keeps our life force pulsing at a really high level. When we are in connection with the land and waters around us, it increases our ability to feel more centered, feel more relaxed, feel more joy. To be more connected to our heart. The heart opening experience that happens when we are at the beach, or gentle nature, it creates a deeper connection with our heart.
When we inspire each other to do this practice of bringing the sacred into the mundane, it inspires a deeper desire to live more holistically, from a fuller place, from a place of purpose and celebration. It really dramatically assists in raising you out of depression because it is incredibly uplifting to begin your day in gratitude around the stimulation of life that it creates.
These practices are an incitation home to yourself, celebrating the victory of your direction reflection of yourself. When you come into the awareness that the Earth is your body, we have the sacred waters in us, we have the suns warmth within us, our bones are the inherent reflections of the stones, and we breathe in the air, when we have that direct attention with the elements, then we have the direct responsibility to care for ourselves better, and when we take care of ourselves better, we take care of each other and the environment better and the relationship with our environment as a whole deepens. The entire practice is a self-love activation that supports expanded love in an environment.